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Will China rule the world? -
09-10-2011, 04:40 AM
Amazon.com: When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order eBook: Martin Jacques: Kindle Store
A click on the picture of the book shows a preview. Martin Jacques: Understanding the rise of China - YouTube Article: The Inevitable Superpower: Why China's Dominance Is a Sure Thing by Arvind Subramanian, Peterson Institute for International Economics Article in Foreign Affairs, Volume 90, Number 5, September/October 2011. August 23, 2011 India is also not far behind, a comparison of the rise of China and India: Differing strengths of India and China make a quinella a smart bet William Pesek September 10, 2011 How can the world deal with US going under China in 20 years and then have India also rise to be No. 2 and compete with China in another 10-15 years? Is the world and Japan ready for this kind of major geopolitical shift? What is Japan's plan to weather this change? 
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09-10-2011, 05:48 AM
All of those articles and books kind of remind me of Ezra Vogel's Japan as Number One: Lessons for America, first published in 1979 (according to Wikipedia). Look how that ended.
On the other hand, the sheer size of China's population (as well as India's) could easily enable it to overtake the U.S. and become the biggest economy in the world. But would China's economic dominance equal political and cultural dominance? Generally speaking, those three factors have gone hand in hand, but few countries (outside of the handful of communist ones that rely on China's support to survive) seem to be looking to China for anything other than economic opportunities.
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09-10-2011, 05:56 AM
so what if they do become the no.1 economy? there is no rule that says western countries are always ought to be the no.1.
i am happy for this - the better the asian countries do and expand the larger prospects for my future carrier are.
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09-10-2011, 05:58 AM
No. China is very different to Japan yet nonetheless it is much the same thing as Japan in the 80s. Even right down to the heavy unsustainable over reliance on construction- which in China is artificial, unlike in Japan where there was actually demand at least.
Ghost Cities - China - YouTube Also people talk about Chinese industry and everything being made in China, etc... meaning they will rule. The trouble is...China is getting richer. The people want better lives. This means more pay. Which means China will stop being the cheap manufacturing place, for cheap mass manufacturing a lot of stuff will shift to other emerging countries (Vietnam, Kenya, etc...) whilst high grade stuff....well that usually gets done domestically. Not to mention rising fuel costs within a few decades will really decrease the advantages to be gained from manufacturing something half way around the world. The big worry of course is the fragile state of the world economy and the potential damage the inevitable happening and the Chinese bubble bursting could do to that.
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09-10-2011, 07:25 AM
Economy is the key, culture and politics follow the economy. If Europe and the US did not have the strongest economy, their culture would not have the influence it has today.
Both China and India has around 10 times the population of Japan and 4 times the population of the US. So Japan's post war rise is not comparable. US as the 3rd largest country (in population) in the world is not threatened by the rise of any other country, except China and India. EU, even if it becomes a United States of Europe, is a cousin and a close ally, and it is still far off and it is only 1.5 times bigger. But for the first time in world history for the last few centuries, we have a situation where two older powerful and populous countries are rising and taking their places back. That obviously puts the US based security architecture in the world in disarray, that is the issue. This affects Japan as well as the rest of the world. It is hard for people to visualize that kind of future, so people ignore, but it is coming down the tracks like a freight train that will hit the world, which is still sleeping I think. My question is do Japanese policy establishment and people believe that it is possible to have such a future, which I am sure they do and in that case what is the plan for security, if the US can no longer protect them?
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09-10-2011, 07:31 AM
Of course Japan's rise is comparable.
Nobody said it was identical, but it is certainly comparable. And we're certainly not ignoring the rise of China, we're just more sensible and educated than the "omg china is rising and gonna take over!!!" view of the masses. I don't see how the rise of China necessarily hurts Japan. Denmark has a fraction of the people of Germany yet it does quite alright sitting next door to it. China is acting a dick with the Senkakus but they aren't about to invade Japan. And the US is still much stronger than China and I don't see this ever turning around even if China were to get more aggressive.
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09-10-2011, 07:46 AM
I think it was not clear why Japan's rise was not comparable. It is because Japan's population, is less than half the size of the US. Also, US is not alone, we should consider its close allies such as the EU, whereas Japan was entirely by itself. So compared to the combined economic might of US and EU or the West as it is commonly known, Japan is around 1/6 of the West. So regardless of how high the per capita GDP goes for Japan, it can never, by itself, be a comparable power to the West.
But the situation is fundamentally different with both China and India. China is a fairly homogeneous state like Japan, India is a bit diverse, but it has democracy to tie them together with sufficient representation. Both are 10 times bigger than Japan. So when their per capita GDP rise, they go into a league of their own, unlike any other country in the world. If the masses are worried in Japan then there is very good reason. It is the political class that are clueless or asleep at the wheel in the US, which I am familiar with. I don't know how the political class is thinking about this problem in Japan, which is why I open this thread.
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09-10-2011, 08:06 AM
One more thing I should point out:
Japanforum.com Site Info Country Percent of Site Traffic China 51.6% Pakistan 8.4% India 8.3% Bangladesh 6.6% Japan 5.4% United States 4.6% United Kingdom 2.5% Philippines 2.4% Indonesia 1.4% Vietnam 0.5% Now this would not be a popular subject with people of certain countries and there will be attempts to ridicule this idea for obvious reasons. But I think this is a vital issue for Japan. While keeping good relations with China may reduce the alienation and have a temporary feel good element, I believe Japan has to look for alternate solutions to face the threat in the long term which cannot be solved with just good relations, unless it wants to become a vassal state of the middle kingdom like the old days. Power has to be balanced with power. When USA goes down, it will no longer be able to provide this balance for Japan and many of its other allies.
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09-10-2011, 08:23 AM
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